Why you should apply business principles to your relationship

Parents or guardians set the standard at which the family functions and prospers, whilst leaders do the same for the organisation in terms of corporate culture, values, vision and mission.

The basic principles are the same, but the key difference is that our personal relationships are emotionally charged and driven by romantic love while in the workplace, we are driven by the love we have for the organisation, our colleagues, as well as being valued for our contribution.

In the workplace, we often participate in performance appraisals or performance reviews to determine if we are meeting our deliverables and targets. However, we do not engage in this same review process in our own personal relationships. Very seldom do we check in with our partners as to what’s working and what’s not working.

When it comes to our jobs and careers, we prepare and plan (study, qualifications, skills etc), we dress up (business attire), show up (participate, engage and deliver) with a view to deliver on outcomes and objectives and get rewarded as a result (salary, bonuses, incentives, benefits).

Yet when it comes to our relationships, we do similar in the beginning stages of our relationship (i.e. the honeymoon phase) however once we get into our relationship routine (i.e. we are more settled and comfortable with our partner), we can get into a rut and with that comes the risk of complacency. When complacency sets in, we often stop making an effort and our relationship takes a back seat vs. other areas of our life (career, children, sport etc).

To succeed at our relationships we need to make time for our relationship, we need to nurture it, maintain the connection through communication (verbal and non-verbal), keep it a priority and balance it with other areas of our lives (e.g. work, children, sport etc).

If you would like to understand more about the dynamics of a relationship and what it takes to cultivate a healthy relationship then book your seat on my upcoming Building Relationships Workshop on 27 May 2017 – it’s applicable to both singles and couples.